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Mobile TV
Summary
All you need to know about Mobile TV on just one page, covering definitions, impact on advertising and the current and future market.
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What Is It?
Mobile TV offers television as viewers know and understand it, watching familiar content from traditional broadcast television on their mobile devices – but it is available on the move and on the small personal screen of their mobile device. In addition, mobile TV will increasingly be delivered by a device with multiple multimedia functions, offering a more active, interactive and personal viewing experience than that of traditional television.
Current MarketWhile mobile TV remains in its infancy; Vodafone, Orange and 3 are already streaming TV over 3G in the UK, although usage remains low. Sky launched its 3G mobile TV service in the UK in 2006, giving users access to around 30 TV channels.
The BBC quietly launched a beta test for a live mobile TV service in September 2008, with view to releasing its mobile iPlayer software on more top-end handsets and networks – users will need a WiFi handset to access the service.
A low base has enabled the mobile TV and video market to achieve high levels of annual growth, yet the overall audience remains below 5 million users in the UK.
BT Movio mobile TV service was shelved in January 2008 following poor customer take-up, however issues of cost and access remain unresolved more than a year later.
While there has been enormous hype surrounding mobile TV, the reality is that few consumers are prepared to pay the prices operators charge – the current technologies and, more importantly, its business models don’t currently stack up.
Impact On Advertising
While advertisers face technological, creative and business challenges in developing advertising for mobile TV, this emerging medium offers the ability to pinpoint users and target advertiser messages according to very specific parameters not possible with traditional TV and at success rates higher than those of the internet.
Advertising on mobile TV will have to suit itself to the ‘snacking culture’ of mobile TV viewing. Advertisments will need to be much shorter than the 15 and 30-second-long TV ads; advertisers are already experimenting with five and seven second-long spots. Rather than being explicit, advertisements are likely to become increasingly brand-related, engaging and entertaining content.
Some believe advertising on mobile TV is likely to move away from the traditional ‘push’ model, to an on-demand model where consumers will determine what advertising content they want to watch, when and where.
Going Forward
Mobile TV is in its infancy in terms of both adoption and production, making it difficult to predict how it is likely to develop. However, Datamonitor estimates the number of mobile broadcast TV subscribers will total 155.6 million worldwide by the end of 2012, up from 4.4 million in June 2007. Datamonitor estimates that the Asia-Pacific region will gain the highest number of mobile TV subscribers, followed by Europe and North America. However, latest figures from ABI Research suggest the total number of mobile TV subscribers will reach 462 million by 2012.
eMarketer projects that by 2011 there will be significantly more paying mobile video subscribers than mobile TV subscribers worldwide, largely a result of the level of 3G penetration. eMarketer estimates there will be 80 million mobile TV subscribers worldwide by 2011, while In-Stat predicts that this figure will be closer to 125 million.
eMarketer’s revenue projections for worldwide mobile TV suggest $7.7 billion by 2011.
Launched in a handful of markets, mobile broadcast services are generating real revenues in Europe, with Screen Digest predicting revenue of Euro4.7 billion from 140 million subscribers, by 2011.
Despite lower consumer uptake of mobile TV services, the industry hopes new developments will facilitate growth; increasing use of mobile internet resulting in more mobile TV viewing, advertising spend providing more subsidies for streaming mobile and the roll-out of digital TV promoting usage.
The future of broadcast mobile has yet to be defined, nevertheless 2009 is being billed as the year in which mobile TV will take off – but the question remains whether the factors favouring growth are strong enough to drive the market forward. Recent Mintel research suggests that mobile TV is unlikely to reach mass-media status in the UK by the end of 2010.
Mobile TV offers television as viewers know and understand it, watching familiar content from traditional broadcast television on their mobile devices – but it is available on the move and on the small personal screen of their mobile device. In addition, mobile TV will increasingly be delivered by a device with multiple multimedia functions, offering a more active, interactive and personal viewing experience than that of traditional television.
Current MarketWhile mobile TV remains in its infancy; Vodafone, Orange and 3 are already streaming TV over 3G in the UK, although usage remains low. Sky launched its 3G mobile TV service in the UK in 2006, giving users access to around 30 TV channels.
The BBC quietly launched a beta test for a live mobile TV service in September 2008, with view to releasing its mobile iPlayer software on more top-end handsets and networks – users will need a WiFi handset to access the service.
A low base has enabled the mobile TV and video market to achieve high levels of annual growth, yet the overall audience remains below 5 million users in the UK.
BT Movio mobile TV service was shelved in January 2008 following poor customer take-up, however issues of cost and access remain unresolved more than a year later.
While there has been enormous hype surrounding mobile TV, the reality is that few consumers are prepared to pay the prices operators charge – the current technologies and, more importantly, its business models don’t currently stack up.
Impact On Advertising
While advertisers face technological, creative and business challenges in developing advertising for mobile TV, this emerging medium offers the ability to pinpoint users and target advertiser messages according to very specific parameters not possible with traditional TV and at success rates higher than those of the internet.
Advertising on mobile TV will have to suit itself to the ‘snacking culture’ of mobile TV viewing. Advertisments will need to be much shorter than the 15 and 30-second-long TV ads; advertisers are already experimenting with five and seven second-long spots. Rather than being explicit, advertisements are likely to become increasingly brand-related, engaging and entertaining content.
Some believe advertising on mobile TV is likely to move away from the traditional ‘push’ model, to an on-demand model where consumers will determine what advertising content they want to watch, when and where.
Going Forward
Mobile TV is in its infancy in terms of both adoption and production, making it difficult to predict how it is likely to develop. However, Datamonitor estimates the number of mobile broadcast TV subscribers will total 155.6 million worldwide by the end of 2012, up from 4.4 million in June 2007. Datamonitor estimates that the Asia-Pacific region will gain the highest number of mobile TV subscribers, followed by Europe and North America. However, latest figures from ABI Research suggest the total number of mobile TV subscribers will reach 462 million by 2012.
eMarketer projects that by 2011 there will be significantly more paying mobile video subscribers than mobile TV subscribers worldwide, largely a result of the level of 3G penetration. eMarketer estimates there will be 80 million mobile TV subscribers worldwide by 2011, while In-Stat predicts that this figure will be closer to 125 million.
eMarketer’s revenue projections for worldwide mobile TV suggest $7.7 billion by 2011.
Launched in a handful of markets, mobile broadcast services are generating real revenues in Europe, with Screen Digest predicting revenue of Euro4.7 billion from 140 million subscribers, by 2011.
Despite lower consumer uptake of mobile TV services, the industry hopes new developments will facilitate growth; increasing use of mobile internet resulting in more mobile TV viewing, advertising spend providing more subsidies for streaming mobile and the roll-out of digital TV promoting usage.
The future of broadcast mobile has yet to be defined, nevertheless 2009 is being billed as the year in which mobile TV will take off – but the question remains whether the factors favouring growth are strong enough to drive the market forward. Recent Mintel research suggests that mobile TV is unlikely to reach mass-media status in the UK by the end of 2010.